


Yet Another Cat

by lanawrites94



Series: Thursday Night Vignettes [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Infant Death, Lance has a lot of cats, Lance is a teacher, Pidge is a researcher, Pidge is pregnant and stressing, i can't remember all their ship names..., plance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23314150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanawrites94/pseuds/lanawrites94
Summary: In which Lance has a lot of cats and Pidge is under a lot of stress.
Relationships: Lance/Pidge | Katie Holt
Series: Thursday Night Vignettes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1676599
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20





	Yet Another Cat

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, everybody. I know it's been forever since I posted anything and I regret that. A lot has been happening in my personal life for the past...year and a half, I think? I got engaged, got a new job, my fiance became a full-time youth minister, I got another new job (replacing the first one, not in addition to), and now Covid-19... We're probably going to be rescheduling and replanning our wedding and instead of stressing out, I wanted to share with y'all something I wrote for my Patreon as original fiction. But it began as Voltron fanfiction, so here it is in its final form but with names reverted for your fandom pleasure. I hope you all enjoy!

Katarina “Pidge” Holt-McClain had agreed to the first cat her husband had wanted to foster. She'd even consented to feed it when he wasn't home, and she'd easily forgiven him when their apartment at the time had transitioned from the cat's temporary abode to her furever home. Pidge had agreed to the second cat and even the fourth, but after that the situation got a bit out of hand. She asked him to find homes for a few of them and he did, but then there were more that needed help and they seemed to multiply. Every few weeks she'd come home and there Lance would be, cuddling another unfamiliar feline and pleading its case.

But enough was enough.

"Really, Lance? Another one?"

"But she's so cute, Pidge! And she's hurt!" Lance insisted, gesturing to the offending paw for emphasis. The poor thing did look pretty pitiful with the blue-gray hair on her left hind-leg obscured by the thick layers of gauze. Pidge had no intention of turning this one away, but something had to change, and it had to change today.

"Twenty. Seven," she said slowly. "We have twenty-seven cats in this house, Lance. Do you realize we now have thirty little mouths to feed, another baby on the way, and then us?" She deliberately caressed her baby bump and raised her eyebrows at her husband. Her extra girth was normal for seven months along, but any pregnancy looked monstrously huge on a tiny woman like Pidge.

"I know it's a lot of cats, mi amor, and I'm sorry. I never meant for us to keep them all so long, but nobody I know wants a cat right now, let alone a couple dozen. And there isn't a no kill shelter anywhere near here. Even if there was I don't think they could take so many at once."

Pidge knew he was trying, that he had been since the first time she'd mentioned it, but she was at the end of her rope, her nerves cut too close to the quick.

“I bet I could get a few of them on the next shuttle. Some of my brother’s colleagues want to see how other mammals adapt to zero gravity. The kids could read about their daddy’s heroic housecats in school and they’ll be able to say ‘I gave them spaghettios when I was three!’”

Lance laughed through a forced smile. “Wow, babe. You sound so serious I almost can’t tell you’re joking.”

Pidge sighed and leaned against the kitchen island, casting her gaze anywhere but at her husband so the shadows in her eyes might go unnoticed another moment more.

“I’m not sure I’m joking anymore, _cariño_. I just—I can’t sleep at night. I’ve been staring at the ceiling and thinking about everything that could possibly go wrong and I know it’s the least likely thing but I can’t see my feet anymore, let alone any cats that might be there, and Lance I’m scared because it isn’t too late to lose this one.”

She slipped back into that tired horror even as she spoke. She could see those headlights coming straight for her and curled herself around her unborn child as the drunk driver hit her all over again. She flinched at the arms that pulled her from the wreckage, shuddered at the pain. Her bones were broken and her stomach hurt. She couldn’t understand why those arms wouldn’t let her go, or what the EMT holding her murmured in her ear all the way to the hospital.

 _“It’s all right, mi vida,”_ he said, sounded just like her husband though he couldn’t be. Lance wasn’t answering his phone. He wasn’t here with her.

Nothing else made sense to her either, until they wheeled her into the OR, broken as she was, and demanded she push. It was the only chance, they said. Her doctor was on her way, but she had to push _now_.

But she didn’t hear any proclamation of sex.

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

Everything was hazy after that, but she recognized that it had been Lance holding her throughout and talking in her ear, and she was able to distance herself from the past, from her memories of that terrible funeral and the smallest casket she’d ever seen, from the lawsuit and the most disgusting reversal of pro-life arguments she’d ever heard—it was double-manslaughter if a pregnant woman died, but if the _fetus_ was still eligible for abortion and the mother survived, then had any crime _really_ been committed?

No. Pidge refused to be sucked back in and focused on her husband’s arms around her, tight so her broken pieces wouldn’t be scattered across the floor.

She tried to think of the time after that, when they’d found their first cat and her playful antics around the house had reminded them there was still love and good in the world, so they named her Paladin. The feline had fought tooth and nail to pull them from their depression, to distract them from their grief and ease their reentry to society, where people didn’t seem to understand just what they’d lost, what had been taken from them because of someone else’s irresponsibility. But from there she only returned to her worry and nearly spiraled out of control again. There were so many cats, now, and with each new addition her anxieties doubled. She knew it hadn’t been her fault before, but she couldn’t fail this baby, too. It didn’t make a difference that she’d carried and delivered healthy twins since then. She would always live in the shadow of that first shattering loss.

“It’s alright, _mi vida_ ,” Lance murmured into her hair as he rubbed her back and held her close. It shouldn’t have shocked her to realize he was crying, too. “Everything’s going to be fine. You’ll see.”

Pidge shuddered and leaned back just far enough to see her husband’s tear-stained face.

“Are you back with me now?”

She nodded.

Lance leaned in and pressed his lips to her forehead. “Thank you for sharing this with me, though I wish you would’ve said something sooner, _cariño_. I wouldn’t have brought home so many to begin with.”

Pidge scoffed and buried her face in his chest. “We only had two when the twins were born, and you’ve only brought home three since I got pregnant this time. Including today.”

“Yeah, but if I’d known I would’ve been working harder to find homes for them, and I wouldn’t have brought home _any_. Except maybe this one. She’s an angel, Pidge. I think you’d love her.”

Pidge frowned and looked around. “Mat?”

“Yeah?”

“Where’s your new cat?”

He sagged against her for just a moment. “I’m sorry, love. I’ll be right back.”

She let him slip from her embrace just as they heard a crash from upstairs. Naptime was apparently over.

* * *

It was a week before Pidge noticed. They had only had to buy cat food once. She hadn’t refilled the water bowls more than twice. She got home from the lab one afternoon and performed a tailcount. They were down to twenty cats, yet Lance hadn’t said a word. When she asked him he only smiled and told her he was working on finding them homes. She took his word for it and didn’t comment as the tailcount dwindled by twos.

Eighteen.

Sixteen.

Fourteen.

And then she and the twins came home from the lab and daycare three weeks after her confession and they found the dog laying on the couch alone for the first time in years. He wagged his tail and gave her the same goofy grin as always, but she was accustomed to him being happy before she came in the door. She couldn’t believe there wasn’t a cat in sight. They had a little white one that always came barreling towards her ankles when she came in. Where _was_ the little booger?

Just then her phone rang and she saw her brother’s name on the caller ID. “Hey. Do you know—”

“Sorry, Pidge,” he said quickly. “I hate to do this to you, but I can’t get a hold of Lance. I think he’s in a faculty meeting or something. Can you tell him for me that the project fell through and I need him to come and get his donations before my boss takes care of them?”

“What project—”

“Sorry, I have to go. I love you!”

And the fucker hung up on her.

She dialed Lance’s number and let it ring. And ring.

“ _Hola…lo siento, no hablo engles…_ Ha! I got you! You’ve reached the voicemail of Lance Holt-McClain—”

Pidge had planned to leave a message like she normally would but changed her mind. She and the kids could be there before he would even see his phone.

But just the thought of wrestling their children back into their shoes was exhausting, so when she called to Suleima and Cael, it was for apples and peanut butter instead of another long car ride that they wouldn’t enjoy. She didn’t think to actually leave a message.

* * *

Lance hated faculty meetings with a burning passion. As per usual, the hour and a half meeting could have been conveyed just as effectively via email. But the department head demanded they talk it to death and banned their cell phones like they were a bunch of middle schoolers. And he wouldn’t make an exception for the tenured professors, or even for the lecturer with a pregnant wife at home, not even given their history.

He panicked when he got back to his cramped little office—broom closet—and found his phone waiting with eight missed calls from his brother-in-law and one from Pidge. No messages.

Pidge didn’t just call and not leave a message. Ever. Unless she was going to see him basically immediately. She’d called over an hour ago and was nowhere in sight. There was no sign she’d come and gone. Her words from a few weeks previous echoed through his head and he bolted for his car, essays be damned.

_It’s not too late to lose this one._

It _wasn’t_ too late to lose this baby. It never would be too late. It would never be too late to lose Pidge or their already independently breathing children either. Anything could’ve happened on the road. He called her phone as he ran, but it went straight to voicemail. Lance didn’t waste another second, simply threw himself in the car and tore out of the parking lot, fastening his seatbelt only as an afterthought when he was already speeding down the highway. _¡Ay, Dios! Let them be okay!_

Lance took the front steps three at a time and missed the lock twice. He dreaded what he might find inside. His friend at police station had reported a record-low number of car accidents today, and his family hadn’t been involved in any of them. But anything could’ve happened before they left the house. She could’ve fallen like she’d feared, or the roof could’ve come down on them. He finally got the door unlocked and threw it open so hard that it smacked a hole in the wall.

He was greeted by a quiet hallway. Until their dog bounded into view, carrying his favorite ball delicately in his giant doggy grin. His tail thumped rhythmically against the wall while Lance struggled to catch his breath.

“Where’s Pidge?”

The dog dropped the ball, barked with his inside voice, and led the way to the living room, where Lance found his family curled together on the couch, safe and sound asleep. Lance stumbled forward and fell to his knees beside his wife. He shook her shoulder with trembling hands,

“Pidge, what happened? Wake up, _mi amor_. Are you alright?”

She woke slowly and blinked owlishly up at him. “Oh. Hey, _cariño_. You’re home early—wait. No, I fell asleep.” Her stomach growled. “And I haven’t started dinner yet. Do you want to just get takeout? I’ve been thinking about Chinese all day.”

Lance barked a hoarse laugh and rested his forehead on her shoulder. He listened to her heartbeat and measured his breaths against it, forcing his body to slow down.

“Lance? Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“It’s…I had a ton of missed calls from Matt and I guess I just jumped to worst-case scenarios. But you’re alright. The kids are alright, and as far as I can tell the baby’s alright, so it’s all fine. I just need a minute.”

“Oh, honey, I’m sorry,” Pidge said as she wrapped her arms around him. “No, I’m fine. We’re all fine. He was calling about work…Please tell me his project has nothing to do with our home suddenly being catless.”

“We aren’t catless,” he mumbled. “Paladin’s around here somewhere. She thought I was trying to take her somewhere too, and wouldn’t come out from under the back porch.”

Paladin was the first cat they’d taken in. Lance planned to hold on to her as long as he possibly could. He loved Pidge and their children more than life itself and all the cats in the world, but Paladin had done so much for them and they’d promised to be her furever family.

“You didn’t even consider taking her, too, right?” Pidge asked. “Please tell me you didn’t.”

Relief sang through Lance’s veins and he slumped against his wife. “If you asked me to I’d give her up, but I’d cry the whole damn time.”

Pidge held him tighter. “I would never do that. Paladin’s part of the family. And I didn’t mean for you to relocate _all_ of them. I’m sorry I wasn’t clearer about that… What project was my brother talking about? And how many of our cats does he have right now?”

Lance hesitated before he said, “The same one you were talking about. I asked him about it, and it turns out they aren’t actually sending them to space. They’re planning to use artificial zero-gravity…What did he say, anyway?”

“That the project fell through and we need to come get your ‘donations’ before boss-man gets rid of them.”

“Oh. I wonder what happened.”

Pidge snorted. “Well, there’s only one facility where they could conduct that experiment, so I bet if it wasn’t an ethics problem then I bet the site managers didn’t want to deal with the cat pee. I can’t say I blame them.”

Lance chuckled before he sighed. “So what do you want to do? I doubt bringing thirteen cats back into the house will be good for your nerves.”

“You’re probably right, but I can handle it while we look for another solution. Together. For now, let’s go get our cats and some takeout. I’m starving.”

* * *

Excited chatter echoed around the announcement of the Holt-McClain Anti-Stress Annex for the student center. It was unheard of for the university to pay for a new facility of their own volition, even more so to name one after a lecturer who hadn’t donated a cent towards its construction. There were rumors that it was part of the university’s attempt not to get sued for something, but no one would corroborate the story.

No one knew exactly what the purpose was. Some thought it would be an on-campus spa. Others said a Zen garden, and still others thought it would be a Latin dance club because they knew how much Prof Holt-McClain missed the dancing in the streets of Havana. But nobody would confirm or deny, so the students just kept guessing in what little spare time they had between the essays, exams, and other torments that made up their little slice of collegiate hell.

Many students declared themselves Prof Holt-McClain’s loyal servants when the center opened. They changed it to loyal followers, and then fans, when the professor heard about it and protested, claiming that spearheading a project to provide a recreational/study space eternally full of cats wasn’t worthy of such praise.


End file.
